It's Vegas Baby!

My best friend, Joanna, decided to run off to Vegas and get married.  Let's face it...this was no shocker to any of us.  She's been talking about if for 4 years. 

When I got the call, I got online immediately, called my travel agent, and booked the trip (with only a few days to spare.)  Luckily, I'm still on maternity leave, so I didn't have to take off from school.  The only difficulty was finding someone to watch the kids.  Enter, the best parents a girl could ever ask for.  That's right...I packed up my 2 year old and 2.5 MONTH old, and took them to my parent's house for the next 2 days. 

We flew out in the morning, and when we landed, I got pretty frustrated with Vegas.  It took us forever to catch a shuttle to the hotel because they apparently had never worked at the airport before.  The shuttle line was a joke.  People who didn't have any bags to put in the back climbed up onto the shuttle without permission and there was a whole crew of other people (including us) who had waited patiently in line and been there earlier, so we had to hang out for another 20 minutes while we waited for the next shuttle. 

Once we made it to the MGM Grand, I thought things were looking up.  It only took about a minute to leave our bags with the bell boy, and then we went to get in line so that we could get a map of Vegas.  Unfortunately, the lines there were a joke too.  Instead of having everyone funnel through ONE line so that the next person who was waiting would be the next one helped, it was like going to the grocery store where you just choose a line and cross your fingers that you chose right.  Unfortunately, we DID NOT!  We got in a fairly short line that got shorter as time went by, but not because people were being helped.  Everyone in front of us jumped ship because these two ladies who had been there since before we got there, were booking their ENTIRE stay right then!  We were literally in line for 45 minutes waiting behind the same two women.  We saw scores of people get helped before us who had come in a long time after us, but we just knew that as soon as we chose a new line, those ladies would be done, and then more people would be helped ahead of us.  Eventually, we got up, got our map, and were on our way.

We decided to start our time in Vegas by hitting up the buffet in our hotel.  This gave us an opportunity to see a bit of the hotel.  I'm sure that it was a nice place, but much of it was cloaked because it was under construction, and some of the elevators weren't operable, which made getting to our room a LONG walk!

The buffet was good.  I was surprised by the price because I had always heard how cheap buffets were.  The food was tasty though, and there were plenty of things to choose from.

By the time we were done, our room was ready, so we got our bags and headed up.  We had planned to just be there for a few minutes, but we were tired, so we hung out in there for a couple of hours before dragging ourselves up and out!

We decided to walk around on the strip for a while just to see what all of the hype was about.  The buildings were huge, and really cool from the outside.  We didn't spend much time in any of the hotels though.  We just didn't have enough time.

I even got to meet Slash and Elvis!

Eventually, we made it to the other end of the strip where we decided to eat at Treasure Island before catching their Cirque du Sole show, Mystique.  We were even in the FRONT row!  We had no idea when we bought the tickets that it was the front row, and parts were hard to see, but more often, the actors were right next to us, or right in front of us.  Honestly, as cool as the show was, I couldn't help but feel a little gross when I got out of there.  I just kept thinking, what on earth were the writers of this show smoking, and what kind of lifestyle must these people in the show lead.  I'll have to admit though, parts were funny, and parts were quite amazing!

After the show, we headed back up the strip to our hotel. 

We had been warned about the guys on the strip who passed out cards with some pretty explicit pictures on them.  Apparently, those people aren' allowed to talk to you because of the nature of their business, so they flip the cards really loudly, tap them in their hands, and then thrust them at you as you walk by.  These things were all over the ground, but I was amazed in the mornings when they were all cleaned up.

We were exhausted when we got back, and crashed as soon as we finished washing Vegas off.